Support for D.C. Vote Goes Global
The disenfranchisement of the District of Columbia took on international dimensions with the July 28, 2006 determination of the United Nations Human Rights Committee that D.C.’s lack of voting representation constituted a human rights violation. The Human Rights Committee is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), an international human rights treaty that the United States had ratified in 1992.
In making this finding, the U.N. committee relied heavily on the testimony of Timothy Cooper, of Worldrights, who argued that “since 1801, the United States government has systematically denied the residents of the District of Columbia the right to enjoy equal participation in their own national legislature.”
According to Cooper, D.C.’s disenfranchisement placed its residents in a uniquely vulnerable political position: “The residents of the District of Columbia are the only U.S. taxpaying citizens denied the right to universal and equal suffrage – fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 25 and 26 of ICCPR – as well as under numerous other international human rights instruments.”
The U.N. committee found that D.C.’s disenfranchisement directly violated specific articles in the ICCPR. The committee reported “concern that residents in the District of Columbia do not enjoy full representation in Congress, a restriction which does not seem compatible with article 25 of the Covenant.”
Worldrights’ Cooper’s testimony pointed out that this was not the first time that the disenfranchisement of D.C.’s residents was found to run counter to international standards. On December 31, 2003, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that the U.S. was in violation of human rights provisions under the Charter of the Organization of American States with respect to its treatment of D.C. residents. On March 31, 2005, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights issued a report that noted that the disenfranchised status of D.C. residents was at variance with OSCE democratic election standards. And on July 5, 2005, the Parliamentary Assembly voted unanimously to call on the U.S. Congress to observe its human rights obligations under the OSCE’s 1990 Copenhagen Document and grant D.C. residents equal congressional representation
Residents of the District of Columbia lack voting representation in the House and the Senate, as well as the same measure of home rule as other Americans. D.C. has no senators, and although D.C. residents are permitted to elect a delegate to the House of Representatives, that delegate is not allowed to vote on the floor of Congress. Although D.C.’s residents can elect a City Council, Congress ultimately dictates all local matters and controls the budgets.
D.C.’s denial of home rule and voting representation in Congress began because, instead of being part of a state, Washington, D.C. was a federal district – the District of Columbia (the “D.C.” in Washington, D.C.). From the incorporation of Washington, D.C. in 1791 until 1801 when Congress passed the “Organic Acts” to govern the federal district, the capital’s residents were represented in Congress by people they voted for in Maryland or Virginia. But the “Organic Acts” took Congressional representation away from the residents of the District of Columbia.
Since 1801, there have been many efforts to restore D.C. residents’ right to voting representation. While D.C. residents were granted the right to vote for president in 1961, the right to voting representation in Congress has remained out of reach. In 1978, Congress passed a constitutional amendment to give D.C. full voting representation, but it was not ratified by the states.
A bill that proposes to address D.C.’s disenfranchisement by granting full voting rights to the non-voting D.C. representative in the House of Representatives, the D.C. Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2006, H.R. 5388 is advancing through Congress. It reflects a bipartisan effort, co-sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis, R.Va. and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D. D.C., and proposes to balance the new Democratic seat by granting additional voting representation to Utah, a traditionally Republican state that is in line to receive an additional representative in the next census. The bill would not address the lack of home rule autonomy or lack of senatorial representation
H.R. 5388, has progressed further than any other D.C. voting rights act in the past decade. It passed the House Committee on Government Reform with a vote of 29-4 on May 18, 2006 and is on track to go to the House Judiciary Committee.
As Leadership Conference on Civil Rights President & CEO Wade Henderson notes, “Voting is the language of our democracy. Without it, the citizens of the District of Columbia are the silent voice in the wilderness, spectators to democracy, right in the shadow of the very governing institutions that serve as a shining beacon to the rest of the world.”
